Stamps, Vamps & Tramps (A Three Little Words Anthology)

by Rachel Caine

  As the men in blue removed him from his erstwhile business premises, Elliot Pugmann—Caucasian male, 49—did not help his case by proclaiming himself an artist and genius, and shouting that they’d no right to destroy his blood source.

  The tattoo still covered most of Lola’s back; delicate leaves and thorny tendrils rambled outward from the original silver-dollar rose at its heart, but they no longer grew, and the ink stayed solid black. For all Pugmann’s skills as a biochemist and tattooist, he hadn’t found a way to keep the blood active past the demise of its donor. Psychopathic egomaniac, but at least the artwork’s good. And she wondered how much of its beauty had come from the artist’s hand, and how much had blossomed from the dead girl’s heart.

  She’d never get the corset back—it was likely in a police evidence locker somewhere, and asking for it would draw too many awkward questions—but she was rethinking her stage wardrobe anyway to go with her new inked look. A little less old-time glam, a little more rock ‘n’ roll.

  Morgan liked the idea and was eager to have her back onstage.

  They sat at a window table in the Coffee Cave. He held her hand under the table. Nearby, a ragged young woman from the NWI mopped the floor. Too young to be living on the street.

  Ian had paid for their lattes out of his first real paycheck in four years—as doorman and security at the Club. His jujitsu skills had given Lola the idea, and a hands-on interview won Morgan over. “It’s only until I can update my skills and get back into programming,” he’d said at first, but readjustment to a life he hardly remembered came hard, and the Club was a good place for people who didn’t like to be boxed in.

  Lola sipped her latte and looked out the window, across the street to the daytime-closed front of the Club. The marquee lights wouldn’t go on until dusk, but it felt right to see her stage name up there once again. “You know I’m going to keep dancing,” she said to Ian. “Not because I have to. Because I want to.”

  “S’all right,” he said. “I’ll probably keep living in my car a while. I’m, ah, used to it now.”

  Lola grinned, thinking of his car and that first morning-after, when she’d taken him home for a shower and breakfast. “You can shower at my place anytime, love.”

  SIDEPONYTAIL

  By Lily Hoang

  Charlotte is into role-playing. She wouldn’t call herself an addict or anything severe like that, she doesn’t have a problem—that’s what Carson said, “Girl, you’ve got yourself a problem,” but he’s all drama so whatever, what’s the point in having a platonic male friend if not for fireworks and flavor?—it’s a hobby.

  Everyone has hobbies.

  Yesterday, over mimosas and crab-cakes, he said, “But you were into it,” something between a scientific fact and incredulity.

  She shouldn’t have said anything. Like, it’s fine when Carson rattles about his bitches, but she says one little thing and he’s all interrogation detective. The way he asked her, shame was braided into the rhetoric and she was guilty, better put her on the sex offender registry, snap snap.

  “It’s, like, a big part of girlhood. Like, dolls are supposed to be real babies that you cradle and burp and come on, Disney?”

  Carson tipped his champagne glass towards her, “Jesus, of course. You’re so predictable.”

  Charlotte skims the woman’s file. She wants to be patient, but she only allots one get-out-of-jail free card, that’s it. Just one.

  “What about my kids?”

  The only thing worse than a convict is one who uses her kids easy as trading cards. “You should’ve thought about them before using.” Charlotte aims to look intimidating: sharp black suit, glasses that slide down her nose to make her glare hint at menace.

  “It ain’t right, Miss Anders, swear it. Just must be it’s still in my system. I haven’t used in months, honest.” The woman crosses herself. “Swear to God Himself.” She shakes her head, but it’s more like thrusting, no control.

  The woman must think she’s a fool, like it isn’t her job to sieve lies, like this woman is something special, no, she’s just another tick for recidivism and Charlotte’s the one who’s going to have to do it, this woman should be taking care of her kids, not going back to prison for dirty piss. It’s stupid. Charlotte hates the woman, hates all the ones who make her do it, and this woman is no different, they’re all the same: they beg, they always do, and bargain and threaten and lie, a bunch of goddamn liars.

  Charlotte picks up the phone and the woman is cuffed.

  She was lying, of course. Charlotte doesn’t feel remorseful, not even when the woman spits bitch while she’s being led out, like one cruel word might give her freedom, like there’s no such thing as culpability or rightness or justice. Charlotte wishes the woman had been telling the truth, but she’s not some amateur at her job: she knows exactly how long it takes a body—a female body—to synthesize every drug, how long it takes a body to eject every drug, how to read the numbers. When she started the job, she thought of herself as an advocate. Now, her coffee is cold but whatever, it still works fine enough.

  “What about whores?”

  His eyes were open, his hands pushed her hips down hard.

  “Sad cases, most of them.”

  “How many men have you fucked tonight?”

  It was kind of like his dick belonged to some monstrous thing, like he asked the question and her whole body became smaller. And they’d been having sex. She knew how things should fit, this was something else. “Six.”

  Freddie made fists around her tits and pulled. He whispered, “Do I get a discount for being the lucky seven?”

  Charlotte’s one of the girls who thinks up the perfect comeback right off beat, it’s an issue of timing.

  She just about threw up finishing him, not—like—in a bad way. She’d blown him before, plenty of times, plenty of other guys too. This, she understood, was recess, the bell rings and the teacher releases the kids to play. Afterwards, they slept the way they did every time she spends the night: him on his back, arm hooking her waist, her head already asleep somewhere along the brawn of his chest.

  “It doesn’t even matter why, okay? I’m fine with it.”

  Charlotte didn’t want to lie. Or, she didn’t want to be exposed as a liar. It’s just that he was being all accusatory, like there was something wrong with her.

  Carson downed his mimosa. “No,” he said, the glass was still touching his lower lip, challenging. “You’re not fine with it at all, you little tramp.” The glass, with its slender funnel and the pressing New Orleans humidity, filled and emptied at every word, his sass collected in small condensations. “You like it.” He stood up. “Round three is on me, hussy.” Before Charlotte, Carson had sex with all of his female friends, which accounted for something or other she figured, so he made up for it by pretending he was gay around her. Because they weren’t having sex. Well, they were having sex and it was kind of a big deal, when Charlotte told him she was sort of really into this other guy, and Carson didn’t take it well but then he changed his thinking or something because at some point, Sunday brunch became tradition and him acting compensatorily gay and her confessing things about her sex life that she didn’t tell her closest BFFs became tradition too.

  Some buskers started up. They were all soul and beat, probably around the corner but their music carries and keeps. Part of her hoped that buskers could save her from her Midwestern lines, corn and apple trees in simple lines, line after line, gridded rules, and buskers bent and shook and quivered. They lived.

  “Okay, real talk,” Carson said, “and be honest with me, okay? How freaky does it get? Like, I’m imagining you’re Bella, but the real question is: is he an Edward or a Jacob?”

  This time, she didn’t miss her shot. “Both,” she’d aimed right at Carson’s annoying man-complex and blasted it down. Maybe it was mean of her, but she knew, fake gay or not, he hated that she didn’t choose him. Carson wasn’t in love with her or anything, obviously, but it was a pr
ide thing, the easiest tackle. Then, relenting, she said, “Jesus, Carson, I’m not twelve, I don’t fantasize about vampires and werewolves, okay?” She felt suddenly insulted, probably because he was right. “You of all people should know that.”

  “Oh,” he said all exaggerated, “I get it.” The trumpet was trilling off wild. Charlotte wished she knew how to play, maybe she should start up lessons, she was jealous of her friends growing up, the ones with decent parents because they cared or something. They learned music. It was like a way of talking that she couldn’t even understand. Her parents gave her money and bought her the newest gadgets and after all that shit in middle school, they were decent enough to put her in private high school—fresh start, they’d said, or, no, they didn’t say it. As in they didn’t speak the words, they were in Galapagos or wherever, or her mom was there on business, who knew!?, she got it on her pager, this cryptic message, fresh start, and so it was, a fresh start and all without music. “Charlotte.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So am I right or what?”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know why I bother.”

  “Stop being a prima donna, Christ.”

  “I was just saying that I was wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “Whatever, girl, you’ve got yourself a problem.”

  “Well, I guess the moment of humility was really just a moment.”

  “Humility? Why would I need to be humble? I’m not one of your felons, dig? I was wrong, you got that one right, but only because I got the roles confused. There’s no way you’d be Bella. You’d make him be Bella. You’re all vampire empress, totes. I bet you make him beg.” Carson’s voice got louder, heavier, it pushed the music out and away. “I bet you emasculate him, take away his dignity—not that you’d be with a man with dignity, you always choose weaklings you can dominate and own, am I right? Poor Freddie, so effete and fragile! So feminine—and that’s when you do it, fanged out machetes and I bet you’re so into it you actually lick the blood right off his neck.”

  With all her fancy education, she shouldn’t be a probation officer. Every day, she wonders why she’s doing it. It’s not for the money, that’s for sure, her parents didn’t give her attention or hugs—they were busy, she gets it and doesn’t—but the fact is, she doesn’t need to have a job, much less a profession, but here she is, looking at the clock, looking at the files, looking at people she’s responsible for getting cuffed and carted away. Her desk is confusion, like how a kid shuffles cards before he knows how to shuffle, loose papers in puddles and mounds. Charlotte takes a stack and tries to at least align the edges. It’s nearly five, and Freddie won’t be free until eight. She has three hours to get ready, minus the commute.

  In middle school, Charlotte saw something terrible. She was in English and her school was trying out some stupid new program that separated the girls from the boys in AP classes. Her parents—both of them—had to go to a big deal meeting about it. They went out for Italian food after. Charlotte can’t remember anything about the meeting, just that her mom had a grilled chicken salad and her dad had spaghetti and meatballs but with white sauce and she had lasagna and they shared a tiramisu and pear gelato. Charlotte was in eighth grade. It was 1995, a month before summer break, and Charlotte’s biggest worry in life was whether she liked Tommy more or Peter more, Tommy was supposed to be a phenom pitcher but it’s not like baseball players score really high on popularity points—although, he was already a freshman, which meant that next year, she’d start school with a boyfriend who was already established, and that’d make it easier for her, probably—but Peter was way hotter but he was in her grade and he was into computers and nerdy stuff like that and he didn’t know that he was way hot so it was like he’d worship her or something, which would be kinda nice. Charlotte was trying her best to imagine what her first kiss would feel like with each of them, it was important, a moment to be remembered, one’s first kiss, she wanted it to be sudden and unexpected and romantic like in the movies, and she wasn’t paying attention, even though she liked the class, because this was like big picture stuff and she’d already read Pride and Prejudice like ten times, and she almost missed it. It wasn’t until Maggie started screeching out cusswords that Charlotte was kicked out of daydreaming. There was a man, Charlotte didn’t recognize him because he had his back to the students, he was holding Miss Salerson’s arm, talking into her ear. And then he shot her, Charlotte hadn’t even seen the gun, or she doesn’t remember it, but she must’ve seen it because it was a rifle and really big and he shot her right under her neck and then he aimed at the same spot on his own body and fired.

  Her parents had wanted her to stay in town for college—her dad was the dean of something or other, which meant she’d go for free, or maybe he was a provost, she really didn’t care—and Charlotte wanted away, anywhere, and she had her choice of her top choices and she picked Tulane arbitrarily, because New Orleans seemed like an exciting place. Also, it was far, a whole different world and culture from South Bend, like it was a place that actually had difference and culture, and Mardi Gras and boats and cafés. She didn’t have anywhere to go after she finished school, so she stayed.

  Being a probation officer is totally not what she thought she’d be doing when she left the Midwest. Sometimes, she imagines what eighteen year old Charlotte would think of thirtysomething Charlotte, she’d be disappointed, for sure, at her future self, that this is the sum of her life, she hadn’t just squandered it, she flat gave up, didn’t even try, thirtysomething Charlotte: she’s a paper pusher. Her social life is the kind of joke without a punch line. She’s pretty sure Freddie’s cheating on her or something. She’s pretty sure something isn’t right. But the worst of it, she’s on the wrong goddamn side.

  Eighteen-year-old Charlotte was a radical, a feminist, an ankh tattooed on her ankle before ink was mainstream; she was hardcore in that way that only privileged kids can be. Nor is thirtysomething Charlotte just a passive cog in the system—eighteen year old Charlotte would’ve balked at that too, hard to say which one she’d think of as worse—no, she’s an active participant, every day she sees people who started life fucked and no one bothered to teach them any different and it’s her job to teach them but it’s like she doesn’t even have control over what she can teach, because there are all these rules. Like there’s no such thing as positive reinforcement. Doing good means her students get to stay free. It’s like she can’t even praise them, but bad behavior earns immediate punishment, she’s a terrible teacher, the whole operation is a failure, just like she is, that’s exactly what eighteen year old Charlotte would say, and then there’s all that business with Freddie and the role-playing, which was all her idea, she’d scripted it out and everything, because she’d been there before, that moment when sex gets stale and she uses role-playing out of desperation, to keep her man, because let’s face it, she is pathetic, unlovable, someone who deserves a hypothetical teenager’s mockery.

  Truth is: Carson was wrong, but only because he chose the wrong vampire.

  Charlotte picks out a tangerine tank, low-cut and cleavage needed, a blue plaid shirt, and denim shorts that aren’t nearly short enough. If Carson knew her at all, he would never have chosen Twilight, she’s not into that amorous longing stare and she doesn’t own stock in star-crossed stupidity. If Carson knew her at all, he would’ve known that if she were going to role-play any vampire story, it’d be True Blood. She doesn’t watch it for plot, it’s the raunch she’s after. Charlotte takes a pair of scissors to her shorts. She’s never cut denim before. She usually buys her costumes. She can’t control the lines, they diagonal and fall in tiers: irresistible.

  The problem with Freddie is that he’s a gentleman.

  He opens car doors and all doors and he knows what wine pairs best with what meat.

  He pays his bills on time.

  His house is always clean, his bed is always made.

  His towels—all of them—match.
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br />   His hair is always in place, even when it seems impossible.

  He has business cards.

  He is a replica of her father, at a quarter his salary, which doesn’t break any deals.

  Like walking into a swarm of gnats, that’s how Charlotte feels with every opened car door and every bottle of wine and every check he writes and on.

  Charlotte thought there was no way he’d go for it. But right around the time she told Carson she was kinda into this other guy, she handed Freddie the script. He had just come home from work, hadn’t even had the time to undo his shoes. Either he played or she would end things, he was a nice guy and that was the problem. Charlotte had a fucking problem.

  “What’s—”

  Charlotte kneeled.

  She showers and shaves. She doesn’t know if she should wash her hair or not. Sometimes, Sookie rocks that day-old low-sideponytail look, and that’s what Charlotte wants to imitate. She towels off, makes pouty lips at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks are too high, otherwise, she could pass for Anna Paquin. She’s always been pretty but unremarkably so. There’s just nothing to her that’s special. When men, even Freddie and Carson back in the day, praise her, they use vague words like hot and sexy, sometimes a rare beautiful sneaks up in there, but no one points to one specific thing—her smile, her eyes, her legs, her ass—that makes them wild, just wild, she’s pretty enough to be pretty, she doesn’t want pretty, she wants to be arresting, she wants to arrest men. She laughs at her pun, apropos but without the wit of humor.

  Yesterday, over dessert and really tossed, Carson asked her, “Why him?”